Obama critic disinvited from Morehouse graduation ceremony

Champions of openness! That's our liberals

A prominent pastor was allegedly disinvited from speaking at Morehouse College’s baccalaureate service this week after he criticized President Barack Obama, who will deliver the school’s commencement address.

The Rev. Kevin Johnson, a Morehouse alumnus and the senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, Pa., wrote an opinion column earlier this month in the Philadelphia Tribune accusing Obama of neglecting the black community in his cabinet picks–they’re overwhelmingly white–and broader political agenda.

The day after the article ran, Johnson said, Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. phoned to express reservations about his “untimely” comments regarding President Obama. Johnson asked administrators to honor their invitation, but learned days later he had been replaced by three alternate speakers.

Now, a group of two dozen pastors who lead churches across the country are demanding Morehouse re-invite Johnson.

“If President Wilson turns his back on one of our most distinguished alums because of an exercise of free speech and political commentary, he will have set Morehouse on a dangerous course and departed from the great tradition bequeathed to us,” Rev. Dr. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, Ca. told East Atlanta Patch, which aggregated the comments of other outraged alums.

The release quoted Johnson as saying: "I have always been and continue to be a supporter of President Obama. The issue is not about the article in question, but about Morehouse's long-standing history and pedagogy of free thought and free speech. Without free thought and free speech, Morehouse would not have produced our most admired alumnus, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

Johnson submitted a letter to Wilson on April 17 insisting that his original invitation be honored. Instead, he was replaced with three other speakers, the release said.

However, officials at Morehouse, situated in Atlanta and the only all-male historically black college in the nation, offered a different account Friday.

"Rev. Johnson was never disinvited," said Elis Durham, media relations manager, referring further questions to a statement by Wilson.

In it, Wilson said he had long urged Morehouse to "focus our attention on important matters to the exclusion of distractions." Specifically, he said, the community should focus on the graduation celebration of the students and the visit by the president.

Wilson, while not naming Johnson, said he had extended an invitation to a distinguished alumnus to speak at the baccalaureate service, then decided to change the format to a "more creative, multi-speaker approach that is used by many leading institutions."

Three speakers would reflect a broader range of views, Wilson said.

"To my chagrin, my decision has been wrongly construed by some as an effort to 'disinvite' this individual," Wilson said. "He was not disinvited, but rather declined to participate in the format."

Censorship, he added, "has no place in any viable academic institution. These allegations are fundamentally deleterious and are undeserved."

The decision had nothing to do with censorship, the King legacy, or the traditions of the college, he said.

The Citizens for Change news release carried the names of seven Morehouse alumni who said there was "growing concern" over Wilson's handling of the situation and that "many regard the college's change of course as an affront to the liberal arts tradition of intellectual freedom."

Ha ha...libs disinviting libs over racist lib blather from a ceremony where the head lib will spout more blather...not because it is racist lib blather but because the head lib might be offended that he is not percieved as being racist lib enough.

This stuff writes itself.

Anyway, gotta go attend graduation at an historically all white male college that specializes in white studies and promulgates white racial pride.

Ha ha...libs disinviting libs over racist lib blather from a ceremony where the head lib will spout more blather...not because it is racist lib blather but because the head lib might be offended that he is not percieved as being racist lib enough.

This stuff writes itself.

Anyway, gotta go attend graduation at an historically all white male college that specializes in white studies and promulgates white racial pride.

Wait...whut....

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oh, if your old african american studies classmates could hear you know.

Ha ha...libs disinviting libs over racist lib blather from a ceremony where the head lib will spout more blather...not because it is racist lib blather but because the head lib might be offended that he is not percieved as being racist lib enough.

This stuff writes itself.

Anyway, gotta go attend graduation at an historically all white male college that specializes in white studies and promulgates white racial pride.

Between Obama getting his butt kicked by Romney in the election and the "free money" we'd all be getting for betting the Yankees winning less than 80 games this year I'm in awe of this acuity of prognostication.

Ha ha...libs disinviting libs over racist lib blather from a ceremony where the head lib will spout more blather...not because it is racist lib blather but because the head lib might be offended that he is not percieved as being racist lib enough.

This stuff writes itself.

Anyway, gotta go attend graduation at an historically all white male college that specializes in white studies and promulgates white racial pride.